Ron Plain is a member of Aamjiwnaang First Nation, located near Sarnia, Ontario and has given innumerable so called “Toxic Tours” of the famously devastated landscape in the area. Alison and Alexsandra of Birdbone Theatre send us a radio documentary tour with Ron this week as they drive around the area looking at horrifying reminders of the devastation wrought by modern civilization on the easy to ignore corners of our rich nations. For more information about just how toxic a legacy has been left in the hands of the Aamjiwnaang people and other local residents please take a few min to view this Ecojustice report.

For further reading about Ron Plain, here are a couple articles on his #IdleNoMore actions:

While this radio piece was not a part of one of their normal productions, the Birdbone Theatrealso tours Ontario doing there wonderful brand of self described scrappy puppet theatre, where I met them recently to view their work designed to bring attention to the Line 9 reversal issue as well as the risks of oil development in general. You can read my review of their show as well as look at a few pictures here.

In the final part of the show we talk about the issue of population with regards to environmental carrying capacity, or more specifically overpopulation… by listener request! That’s right folks, we do respond to email check out the contact us page if you’d like to do just that.

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As announced on the show!

I don’t know where you’ll be on March 14th (aka Pi Day or, for Veronica Mars fans like myself, P.I. Day), but I will be at the Danforth Music Hall, where hometown boys Danko Jones are taking the stage, along with Oshawa rockers The Standstills. That whole spring forward deal has left me sleepy, so if you’re dragging a bit, consider this a wake-up call.

In 1999, my father passed me an EP and told me to give it a spin. There was nothing out of the ordinary about this: my father has been contributing to my hunger for new music since my birth, raising me on prog rock, metal, blues and anything else that struck him as enjoyable. But there was nothing ordinary about said EP. Marking the end of a “We don’t give a damn about ever making an album” era, Danko Jones’ My Love Is Bold gave the radio stations an infectious single and the band a Juno Award nomination.

This was only the beginning of their journey up the mountain of success, a sprawling adventure spanning continents, endless tours, unexpected choice gigs, a slew of drummers and detached retinas in the name of rock and roll. Not bad for a Film Major and Environmental Studies Major.

Today, we reminisce and enjoy that single, “Bounce“.

The Standstills… a band that The Tea Party stumbled onto and promptly invited to tour with them as they reunited. Packing a solid Southern-flavoured rock punch that will perhaps evoke The White Stripes even more than their guitar-drums duo configuration does, they’re a band that sounds much, much louder than two people. There’s also something smoother in the polish here and more of an accessible vibe than much of Jack White’s earlier work. Bonus points: they do an epic cover of “Black Betty”.